Lines
by Bekquai
Summary: Re-uploaded because FF.net was being dumb. SUMMARY: Shuichi is depressed and takes to drugs as a means of escape.


Author's Note: So sorry for posting this again! ^^;; FF.net ate the orginal! I couldn't access it or its reviews, so I deleted it and I'm reuploading it. If you already reviewed, I'd reeeeaaaalllly reeeeeaaaallly love it if you do so again. ^___^ Pretty please with sugar and Yuki on top (of Shuichi)?  
  
Disclaimer: Don't own Gravitation. It belongs to Maki Murakami, who must be an uber-cool person to create such a neato-keeno story with such spiffy characters.  
  
  
  
  
Lines  
  
  
  
  
Shuichi slipped into Yuki's apartment warily, being uncharacteristically quiet. He paused before closing the door, listening intently for any sound. Nothing. He stuck his hand in his pocket and clenched the small plastic sack nervously.  
  
"Yuki?" he called once, got no response. He closed the door with his left hand and kicked off his shoes. "Yuki, are you home?"  
  
Knowing his lover often didn't answer him, he checked each room - even behind the shower curtain - to make sure he was alone. Then he sighed heavily, not knowing whether he did so from relief or disappointment. He'd almost hoped someone would notice he was acting strange, that someone would find him out. That someone would stop him.  
  
He walked into the kitchen and got a plate down from the cupboard. He set it on the kitchen table and sat down gracelessly in a chair. He pulled the package from his pocket and opened it. He poured the contents of it into a small pile, then took the razor blade and a short straw from his other pocket. The pile was deftly cut into two thin white lines. He sat back and contemplated them for a moment.  
  
How did it come to this?  
  
Shuichi bent low over the plate, holding one nostril shut with a finger, and sucked a deep breath in through the straw. A now-familiar burning tingle followed the powder into his nose, lungs, mouth, blood, mind. It electrified him, made his breath more rapid, made his eyes wide and dilated, sped up his heart. He touched a fingertip to the other line, and then ran it over his gums. He tingled there as well, now. He ran his tongue over his teeth and smiled, though it was more of a grimace than anything.  
  
This was how he'd felt that night. It was nearly a month gone, but he relived it in his mind so many times that it felt a lifetime of regret and misery ago. That night, when the fey anorexic girl showed him Hell and called it a gift.  
  
He didn't know exactly when he became so jaded, when the bright-eyed exuberant innocence had been knocked out of him. Maybe it was partially his life with Yuki. Maybe it was the constant tension of being watched by the press. Maybe it was the execs at NG promising he'd have total creative freedom at the start of a project, but gradually suggest that this song's lyrics were too raw, or that song's music was too angry, and wouldn't it be ~better~ like Suguru arranged it?  
  
Frustration followed him on the tour. It made him particularly intense onstage, though. All the critics were raving about how incredible he was turning out to be. But they still compared him an awful lot to Sakuma Ryuichi, and that defeated the purpose in anything he was trying to do.   
  
After the last spectacular concert in Okinawa, there'd been a huge party afterwards. Probably about a hundred people had been smashed into the three connected suites NG had secured for Bad Luck; groupies from all over the country and roadies who'd helped out on tour all drank and laughed and listened to music so loud that the hotel management called several times for them to turn it off.  
  
Hiro and Suguru both enjoyed just hanging out with the fans, signing autographs, the whole bit. Shuichi normally did as well, but he'd been in a brooding mood and crept onto the balcony in his own suite, hoping to avoid over-eager fangirls. Instead, he ran headlong into one.  
  
She was taller than he, stick-thin, with short dyed-blonde hair. Her eyes were lit with a strange, alien fire that he hadn't understood. She smoothed her tight vinyl pants with hands and arms covered in glitter and smiled at him toothily.  
  
"Hello, Shindou-kun," she said quickly, latching onto his arm. "I have a present for you. Come on."  
  
Too startled to resist, he allowed himself to be pulled over to the glass table that decorated the balcony. A few other fangirls and a couple fanboys sat around it, looking like skinny broken angels. On the table were countless lines of crystalline white powder. Occasionally, one of these lost creatures would bend and sniff, and there would be one less line.  
  
"Watch me," said the girl attached to his arm. She plugged one nostril, stuck a short straw in the other, and leaned over the table and inhaled. When she stood, she sniffed rapidly, brushing at her upper lip with her hand. "Now, you try it."  
  
Shuichi honestly didn't know what he'd been thinking. It wasn't like he hadn't been presented with opportunities like this one before. He'd always refused, knowing that drugs would smash his dream of being a truly great singer. But right then, it was so surreal, and he was so angry he couldn't thinking clearly.  
  
"Why not?" he'd asked, mostly to himself, then picked up his own short straw from a pile on the table, bent down low, and did as the girl had done.  
  
It was a shock, how the cocaine made him feel. Like every nerve in his body was ~alive~ in ways which they hadn't been before. He stared at the world around him as if seeing it for the first time. Colors were electric, nuclear. Music pulsated through him. His fingers twitched, wanting to play his keyboard or write lyrics. He knew that if he could only make music, the notes would sear the minds of the listeners like acid, branding them with his essence.   
  
But before he could break away from the girl, she'd wrapped him in her arms like a praying mantis. Her kiss on his sensitive lips was strange. He'd never been kissed by anyone but Yuki before. Her breasts pressed against him, and he felt his hands slide to grip her hips. She was feverishly hot to the touch. She whimpered against his mouth.  
  
The sound was unmelodic and cut through the new sensations like a scream. His eyes, which had closed of their own accord, suddenly opened wide, but he couldn't focus on her face. He caught only blurs of blue-white skin, shiny with sweat and glitter, and her short blonde hair. It was the wrong color blonde, though, not warm sunny yellow, but chemical blue-white. He could feel her hip-bones through her skin. He realized he didn't even know her name.  
  
He shoved her away, panicked and disgusted and guilty. The girl staggered backward and hit the railing of the balcony. For a horrifying moment, she flailed her arms for balance, leaning painfully far over the banister. Shuichi was certain she'd fall and wanted to shout, but he was frozen in a daze. As if in slow motion, she righted herself. Shuichi stepped forward, intending on apologizing, but she began to laugh. It was a hysterical sound, grating and unmusical. The other gaunt and high groupies began to laugh with her. None of them had so much as twitched a muscle when it had seemed certain she'd plummet thirteen stories to her death.  
  
Fear carried him back into the room, their mad giggles following him until he slammed the glass balcony door. He passed drunken partiers as he dashed into the large bathroom. He slammed that door, too, and locked it. He felt dirty. He'd betrayed Yuki with that kiss; he'd betrayed himself with the drugs. His hands shook so badly he could barely turn on the shower. He sat down in the tub still clothed in his concert outfit and let the steaming spray hit him as he tucked his knees up to his chin.  
  
Some time later, the throbbing of the music died. Shuichi waited, though. He knew that the party wasn't over just yet. The groupies had to leave, and that could take hours. He waited, rocked himself back and forth, back and forth, stared at the door to the bathroom with wide, fearful eyes, waited some more. Eventually, the word started to seem less vivid, less plastic-bright. He turned the shower off and stood unsteadily.  
  
The room was empty when he finally got up the courage to leave his humid sanctuary. He crept past the piles of garbage and beer cans and liquor bottles, went out onto his balcony. There was no one there, either. The table had been completely cleaned, except for a small plastic bag that glimmered white in the lights of the city at night. He stared at it for a long time, and then picked it up very deliberately. He drew back his arm to throw it over the side of the balcony. And hesitated. Dropped his hand. Put the bag in his wet pocket. Shivered convulsively when he noticed how cold it was outside when he was soaked to the bone.  
  
"Shuichi?" Hiro called from inside the room, startling him.  
  
"Hai?" he responded, hoping his voice sounded normal. He walked back into the room. Hiro was grinning drunkenly, but peered with distaste at the mess in the room.  
  
"Some party, ne?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah," Shuichi agreed, and gave a little laugh that sounded forced to his ears. Hiro was too drunk to notice, though.  
  
"Your room is trashed. Someone got sick on your bed," he said, jerking a thumb towards said mess. "Come stay in my room."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"Hey, why are you so wet?" Hiro asked, just now noticing his sodden clothes and hair.  
  
"Like you said, it was some party," Shuichi said, feeling his lips split of their own accord in a parody of a smile.  
  
The bag of dust had survived the trip home, survived a week in the darkness of his knapsack. Then, when Yuki had left after yet another fight after yet another frustrating day at the studio, he'd taken it out and used the razor that had been buried in the sack to measure out a line. He furnished his own straw. He wrote lyrics afterwards, and they stung like needles. The music he conjured up to fit them buzzed and hummed like wasps in a jar.  
  
Suguru hated it. Hiro looked at him oddly when he played it. Yuki tapped his foot to the beat.  
  
It would not be going on the next Bad Luck album.  
  
So the bag had dwindled, feeding his creativity. Whenever Yuki stepped out to buy a pack of cigarettes or to see his psychiatrist, a new line would be cut, and a newer, harsher, crueller song appeared. Shuichi knew it was dangerous. He knew he was running out of white powder. He knew that he was losing weight quickly as the drug screwed with his metabolism and appetite. He knew he was starting to become gaunt like the girl on the balcony. He knew Yuki was getting mad at him for not wanting to have sex, because the drug took away that desire, too. He knew all this, but was too frustrated and angry to care.  
  
Now, he sat at the kitchen table, staring at his last line. Would he save it? Would he use it? Would he get more?  
  
He'd been thinking for half an hour, unmoving. Barely blinking his glazed, too-wide eyes. He was an idiot, he knew. Anyone with brains would have been able to avoid this. Was it an addiction yet? Would he go through withdrawal? Would he need to go to rehab? So many questions clamoring in his head, none with answers, all tinged with guilt and self-hate.  
  
Then he heard a key turning in the lock on the door. Panic filled him. Knowing there was no time to stash the powder, he bent and inhaled it quickly. Sniffling as it inflamed his senses anew, he grabbed the bag, the straw, and the razor hastily - too hastily: the razor bit into his palm. He barely felt it. He cast the paraphanelia into the trash as footsteps sounded in the entryway. Then he turned and bounded energetically into the living room.  
  
"Yuuukiii!" he cried, hugging his tall, blonde lover tightly - with a hint of desperation. "Okaeri!"  
  
"Hello, you brat," Yuki said without heat. "What are you doing home so early?"  
  
"K called off practice early today. We've been working so hard lately, you know," Shuichi said hurriedly, maybe too loudly. "Where were you?"  
  
"Out," Yuki said simply. Shuichi sniffled, causing Yuki to look down at him. "Are you crying?"  
  
"No, no, just have a cold coming on, I think," Shuichi said, trying to smile and letting Yuki go. He brushed at his nose with his hand, and Yuki's eyes narrowed.  
  
The older man's hand shot out and grabbed Shuichi's wrist. Realizing his mistake, Shuichi closed his hand in a fist to hide the cut, and tried to pull away. Yuki was too strong, though, and he pried Shuichi's hand open. The cut was deep, and it bled quite a bit. Blood had already been dribbling down Shuichi's forearm when Yuki had grabbed him, and now it smeared over both of their hands. Yuki looked at his shirt, and sure enough, it too had red on it. He frowned down at Shuichi, who thought he looked frightening and beautiful and godlike right then.  
  
"What happened?" Yuki demanded, pulling him toward the bathroom.  
  
"I was making myself a sandwich in the kitchen earlier. I cut myself when I was slicing the cheese. I guess it opened up again when I hugged you," Shuichi invented glibly, too high to think of all the holes in this story. He sniffled again.  
  
"Really," Yuki said in an unreadable tone.  
  
He cleaned the cut for Shuichi - was surprisingly gentle about it, too - and bandaged it. All the while he observed Shuichi, who tried hard not to twitch or smack his tingling lips, and to blink and breathe at normal speeds. He felt obvious, blatant. He knew that Yuki could see through him. He was becoming transparent, like cellophane. Soon anyone would be able look right through him to whatever was behind him, like he wasn't there at all.  
  
The thought terrified him. If people could see through him, then he wouldn't exist. He wouldn't be real.  
  
He reached out his uninjured hand, grabbing Yuki's arm through his sleeve. Yuki looked at him, not startled but... intrigued? Puzzled? Worried?   
  
"Yuki," he said, in an urgent, low voice that shook slightly. "Am I here? Am I real? Can you see me?"  
  
"Shuichi," Yuki said slowly. "I see you."  
  
Instead of reassuring him, this only made him more desperate. He clung to Yuki's arm. "Can you? I can't. I can't."  
  
To his self-disgust, he felt his dry eyes begin to water, so he closed them. His electrified body shuddered, needed to be touched, needed to ~feel~ something. Anything. Pain, pleasure, whichever. He lunged blindly at Yuki, throwing his arms around the taller man's neck and kissing his lips fiercely. He felt feverish, frenzied. Anything but horny, yet he pressed himself to Yuki, wanting to make the man desire him so at least he'd know he had ~some~ effect.  
  
Yuki murmured something against his mouth, tried to pull away. Shuichi wouldn't let him, though; he held the back of his head with his wounded hand. Yuki brought his own hands up and grabbed Shuichi's, prying them off of him. The pink-haired boy cried out in loss as Yuki pushed him away, but Yuki did not let go of him.  
  
"What's gotten into you?" Yuki demanded, obviously shocked at this display.  
  
"Gotten into me? What's gotten into me?!" he shouted, staring wildly at Yuki's alarmed face. It was funny. He began to laugh. It hurt. Even the tears now pouring down his face couldn't stop it.  
  
He wanted to stop. He wanted to ~stop~!  
  
The room began to swim, and still he laughed. He laughed until blackness overtook him.  
  
  
  
~~~~~~  
  
  
  
Yuki had known better than to call an ambulance. That would attract the media, and the attention of the police besides. Instead, he took Shuichi to his own personal doctor, a woman who was discreet and professional about things like drug overdoses. But this wasn't an overdose; she'd said so right off. Shuichi had passed out from hyperventilation, but he was not experiencing cardiac arrest or seizures. So they were letting him sleep it off in his own private room, where Yuki sat in the bedside chair.  
  
"Baka," he said, voice thick. He watched Shuichi toss a little in the throws of some drug-induced nightmare. He stretched out a long-fingered hand and brushed sweat-matted strands of hair from his forehead. "Why did you do something so stupid?"  
  
There was a polite knock on the door before the small, black-haired doctor entered, followed by a line of Shuichi's co-workers and friends. The doctor checked Shuichi's pulse, as she had been once every half hour since Shuichi had been checked it, assured everyone that Shuichi was coping well, and then she left. A heavy silence ensued.  
  
"What is he on?" K asked seriously.  
  
"Cocaine," Yuki told him the results of the blood test.  
  
"How?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"How long?"  
  
"He's been acting strange since he got back from the last tour," Yuki said, eyes flicking to Suguru and Hiro, who both watched Shuichi's restless form with pity and pain respectively. "If either of you know anything, this is the time to say it."  
  
"We didn't know anything," Suguru said vehemently. "Right, Hiro-kun?"  
  
"...I noticed he was acting...odd," Hiro admitted, staring at the floor. Then he looked up and met Yuki's eyes squarely. "But I never guessed it was this serious. I thought he was upset with you. Or me. Or something like that."  
  
"I understand," Yuki said. "I suspected the same."  
  
There was another long silence.  
  
"When will he come around?" Sakano asked to fill the silence. Yuki just shrugged.  
  
After yet another awkward pause, K said, "We'll wait in the lobby. Let us know when he wakes up."  
  
They filed out of the room, all except Hiro. He pulled the other chair over to Shuichi's bed, facing Yuki over the singer's unconscious body. His gaze was half pleading and half challenging, as if he was afraid Yuki would make him leave, as if he was daring Yuki to try. Yuki didn't.  
  
They didn't talk. Time passed. The doctor came and went several times. She knew better than to mention that visiting hours were over. Shuichi finally calmed and dropped into a true, exhausted sleep. The beeping of his heart monitor slowed. He looked thin and papery in the hospital gown, on the crisp white hospital sheets, with oxygen tubes in his nose and an IV stuck in his wrist.  
  
Hiro dozed off at about ten, head resting on his fist. Yuki didn't sleep. He was too angry... and frightened. Angry at himself for not noticing sooner, angry at Shuichi for being such an idiot. Frightened for Shuichi's life. Frightened at how his heart wrenched to see the vibrant young man in pain. He stared at the still body on the bed, entranced.  
  
He didn't remember dozing, but he awoke to the sound of a gasp. Shuichi was awake, eyes wide open in the dimness of room. His bloodshot gaze flicked around the room quickly, and he gave a small whimper when he realized where he was.  
  
"Kuso," he said, voice dry and raw. Then he noticed Hiro, who was still asleep. Then he noticed Yuki, who watched him like a hawk. He wouldn't meet the amber stare.  
  
"Shuichi," Yuki said quietly, not wanting to wake Hiro. "Look at me."  
  
"I can't," Shuichi whispered, close to tears. He curled onto his side, back to Yuki, and started to shake with quiet sobs. "I'm so sorry, Yuki. I'm such an idiot. I'm sorry."  
  
Yuki let him cry. When he'd calmed some, the novelist repeated his command. "Look at me."  
  
Shuichi gave a hiccoughing sob and hesitated. Then he slowly turned to face Yuki. Tear tracks shimmered on his thin cheeks; his eyes were puffy. He wasn't pretty or cute. One couldn't expect him to be, after what he'd been through. Yuki reached out and cupped a pale cheek in his hand, brushing the wet trail away with his thumb.  
  
"Never do this again," he said, then leaned over the bed to kiss Shuichi's forehead.  
  
"I won't! I promise, Yuki!" Shuichi whispered fervently, tears welling up in his eyes again.  
  
As he began to weep, Yuki wrapped him in a tight embrace, letting him soak his shoulder. "Shhh."  
  
He looked over Shuichi's shoulder to where the guitarist was no longer sleeping. His eyes met Hiro's. Hiro inclined his head briefly, then stood and silently left the room. Yuki was glad he understood.  
  
Briefly, he wondered if K would expose this story to the media in hopes of better sales. The thought fairly sickened him. This was too private a grief, too personal a wound to share with millions of total strangers. This would leave Shuichi less innocent, harder, harsher than before. Everyone around him would feel the change. Yuki knew from experience.  
  
But... maybe this metamorphosis wouldn't have to be as bad as his own. After all, he'd been completely alone. But Shuichi had friends like Hiro who truly cared. Shuichi had a loving family that someone should probably call soon. Shuichi had...  
  
Shuichi had Yuki.  
  
"Shhh," he said again, unconsciously rocking his small lover in his arms. "I'm right here."  
  
"I'm glad," Shuichi choked out. "I'm so glad."  
  
They fell asleep on the bed together.  
  
  
  
  
END  
  
  
  
Well... That was interesting. Whatcha think? Review, na no da!


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